Memories of Miriam
by nonto94
Summary: In the days preceding Miriam's death, Pam remembers their relationship.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"_Do you know why I love you?" she asked with a smile, nestled against me in the tub. She caressed the water, making the bubbles and candlelight dance at her fingertips as if she were magical. Sometimes I'm inclined to believe she is._

"_Hmm," I mumbled thoughtfully, my own fingertips skimming up her ribcage. She shivered under my touch and I found myself returning her smile. "Is it my fashion sense and cunning wit?" Her bright laughter filled the room, bouncing off the tile, making it echo. She turned in the water to face me, bringing her body close._

"_That," she said softly, leaning in to brush her lips against mine, "and you're an incredible kisser."_

_I smiled into her mouth, capturing her bottom lip between my teeth and using my tongue before drawing her into a full on kiss. _

_Resisting the urge to kiss her forever, I pulled away and licked my lips._

"_You're not so bad yourself."_

xxx

The quiet knock at the door drags me from my memories and my eyes turn first to the figure in the bed. She's quiet and pale against the white hospital sheets and can hardly be detected under her thick comforter. But she lives. That's what's important. I raise my eyes to meet Immanuel's across the room.

"Any difference?" he asks, sticking his head through the doorway, not bothering to cross the threshold. He's been in and out all day, stopping by the hospital whenever he's had a spare moment, and exhaustion is etched into his face.

"She is unchanged," I report, turning back to Miriam as Immanuel steps into the hall wordlessly and closes the door behind him. I know without him saying that he's going to go home to sleep for a few hours before returning to sit with sister. It's become his routine. It's become our routine. It's one that seems to be nearing it's end.

Though Miriam has been sick for a long time, I watch her every day getting sicker. She's sleeping more than she used to, eating less than she needs, and is dying in front of me. Not even my blood seems to have much effect on her anymore. She hasn't awoken in days. At least she doesn't seem to be in pain.

I lean forward in my chair and brush a hand over her forehead, smoothing away the tendrils of hair that somehow won't stay away out of her face. She hasn't moved for hours, I'm told, but still can't seem to tame her hair. I smile despite myself. Her hair is the same as it's always been, as free and wild as Miriam is. Or maybe I should say as free and wild as she once was. She certainly isn't free now.

The smile wilts off my face at the thought.

The urge to turn her is overwhelming. The desire to return that spark, that freedom to her is unrelenting. If I've ever felt for someone the way I do for Miriam, I don't remember it, either in my human life or life as a vampire. But despite my desire to keep her and her desire to live, I can't turn her. It's been forbidden.

Hot, violent rage lashes up in me at the injustice and I ever so gently release the frail hand that I'd held cocooned in mine since I sat down. Thoughts of Victor set me on edge and I don't want to damage her in my frustration. Especially since it's likely the hospital staff won't permit me in to see her if I do.

The table next to her bed is filled with her things, and I turn my attention to it, trying to distract my mind.

I feel helpless. She's closer to death than she is to life and there's literally nothing I can do. My blood might as well be water for all the good it does her.

I spot her brush on the far side of the table and I have to stretch past flowers, mementos, some magazines to reach it. The least I can do is help her tame that wild hair. Photos shift when I pick up the brush and one in particular catches my eye. It's a picture of Miriam. She looks amazing and so incredibly alive. Her eyes are sparkling, her skin is glowing, and her hair is escaping it's ponytail in a way that only flatters her. I scatter the pile to get a better look and can't help but laugh when my own face comes into view.

"Picnic with Pam" it says on the back, earning another laugh from me. I remember that day, of course, but it seems so long ago it was nearly another lifetime. It was so long ago we were almost different people. It was so long ago leukemia hadn't even crossed our minds. But it was an important day. It was the first day I realized Miriam is different. It's the first day I thought maybe I could love her.

xxx

"_Who takes a vampire on a picnic?" I grumbled, climbing out of the car and trudging along after her through woods to get to her preselected picnic spot. It was Miriam's turn to choose our date, and so far I wasn't impressed. _

"_Just hush and carry the basket," she commanded grumpily, dumping the woven basket into my arms and continuing up the hills and through the trees. Though the moon wasn't full, it was bright, and her human eyes had no trouble picking up the path by the moonlight shining through the leaves. _

"_I don't eat human food you know," I continued a minute or two later, ignoring the dirty looks she was shooting my way. "What did you pack in here anyway? Sandwiches?" I sniffed at the basket but wasn't able to smell more than the wood used to craft it. _

"_Why does it matter to you? You can't eat them anyway." she said with an unladylike snort, plucking the basket from my hands before I was able to lift the lid and examine the contents. "And stop trying to smell the basket. This is supposed to be a surprise."_

"_Alright, alright," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. "I'll be good." It wasn't fair for me to be so grouchy with her before our date even started. Maybe I would learn to like picnics. Then again, maybe her plan wasn't for a picnic at all, but instead to have wild sex in the wilderness. That thought cheered me up a bit and I managed a smile as we walk. _

_We stopped just short of the edge of the woods._

"_Close your eyes," she said, circling behind me and laying a warm hand across my face. My first instinct was to free myself from her grasp and regain my sight but I resisted the impulse. I trusted her, and could overpower her if need be. I took a few steps forward blindly._

"_Okay, now what?"_

"_Keep walking." She nudged me forward step by step until I was certain we were out of the woods, then nudged me forward a bit more._

"_Can I look now?" I asked impatiently. Being sightless temporarily was one thing, but I thought I'd played along long enough. She dropped her hand._

"_Sure, take a look."_

_My eyes opened to a clearing in the woods, abutting a lake, bathed in moonlight. It was a pretty sight but did it really warrant being a surprise? I didn't think so._

"_It's nice," I said neutrally, glancing at her to gauge her reaction. I wasn't quite sure what she was expecting, but didn't want to disappoint her. There was, after all, a chance we can here for wilderness sex._

_She scoffs. "It's more than nice. Check out the boat." My head swivels and my neck cranes looking for a boat. I don't see one in the water but finally spot it at the edge of the lake. It's a canoe, turned opening down on the shore. Surely her plan wasn't for us to paddle out and picnic on the water. Though possibly romantic by human standards, that kind of date was not for me. Just the thought of sitting in a speck of a boat in the middle of the lake watching her eat was making me uncomfortable._

"_A canoe?" I asked, raising my eyebrows just a bit, keeping my true feelings off my face. She smiled at me sweetly._

"_Uh huh. I thought with your vampire speed you'd be able to get us going really fast." I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The look on my face must have been priceless because she burst into laughter. "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. It's not the canoe. It's the boat. The boat by the trees."_

_I looked again and glimpsed the gleaming white hull of a small boat on the water. A few steps toward the shore revealed a motor on the back. And were those water skis in racks along the side? Now this was turning into my kind of a date._

"_Can I drive it?" I asked with a smile, nearly quivering with excitement at the prospect._

"_Of course you can, that's what we're here for," Miriam said with a laugh, dropping the picnic basket to the ground and retrieving two bathing suits from it's depths. "Like I'd really try to take you on a picnic."_

xxx

I dropped the photo is if it had become hot and scoop it into a stack with the others, turning them face down on the table.

It was hard to look at her like that and remember her like that when she was withering to nothing in front of me. She wasn't even a shadow of her former self anymore. She'd been reduced to a lifeless shell of blood and tissues that barely resembled my Miriam.

Remembering the brush in my hands, I sit on the chair next to her bed and free her fair from behind her shoulders. I brush the fine strands smooth until static has them crackling and levitating off her pillow. I smoothed her hair down and set her brush aside, perching myself on her bed for a moment before lying down and stretching my body out alongside hers. Her body against mine feels comfortable and familiar, and I breathe deeply, struggling to smell her scent over the smell of drugs and antiseptic and permeates every floor of the hospital.

"I'll get you back, Miriam," I promise quietly in her ear, tracing the planes of her face with my fingertips, trying to remember her as she was, picturing her as she one day will be. "One way or another you'll be vampire, even if I have to change you against everyone's wishes." I hope it won't come to that but I'm willing if it does. I will not lose her. Not if I have the power to keep her forever. Not if I can bring her back to me.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I answer it without moving from her side, not quite ready to leave her.

"This is Pam," I say quietly, tucking already errant strands of hair behind her ear.

"It's Eric," he says through the phone. "There have been some developments where Victor is concerned. Can you come to my house immediately?"

Developments? What kind of developments? Am I wrong to feel hopeful? Could this be the beginning of what we have been waiting for?

"I'm on my way."

I slide from the bed, careful not to disturb her, and retrieve my purse from it's spot on the floor. I drop my phone inside before turning back to Miriam. Does she look even worse than she did when I got here? It's hard to tell.

"I don't want to leave you," I whisper in her ear so softly I doubt she could hear me even if she were awake and well. "But I'll be back, just wait for me. And always know that I love you." I press my lips to her forehead for the briefest of moments before turning back to her bedside table. Against my better judgment, I sift through the photos, avoiding the smiling faces on the front, using the familiar scrawl on the back to guide me. "Picnic with Pam" is at the bottom of the pile and I slide it carefully into my purse.

"I'll be back soon," I promise again, leaning over her for one more kiss before leaving the bright, coolness of the hospital for the warm, overcast night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The rain had stopped falling and the cicadas had started chirping by the time I left Sookie's house and crossed her wet lawn to my vehicle.

"On my way," I text before pointing my SVU down the driveway and stepping on accelerator. I had spoken with Immanuel an hour ago. He said Miriam has worsened but wouldn't give me any more details. I've ached the whole night to go to her, to be by her side, but there's nothing much I can do for her now. She's dying. And my only option is to get Victor out of the way so I can turn her.

Our plan to eliminate Victor is a good one. It's not perfect, and the casualty count will surely be high, but tomorrow things we will resolved one way or the other. Either Victor will die and I can turn Miriam, or I'll die and won't be around to car. Either way, the sooner we can rid ourselves of that roadblock the better. Miriam doesn't have the time to wait for Victor to change his mind. She only has days left, if that, and if I don't turn her soon, I'll lose her forever.

I press my foot onto the gas pedal a little harder, urging the vehicle forward more quickly.

I can't lose her. I won't. I want to be with her forever.

xxx

"_Do you know why I love you?" she mumbled sleepily, rolling toward me and curling up next to me in the bed. I smooth a hand over her hair and tuck the blankets around her slim shoulder more snugly. She'd been sleeping, she needs her sleep. I hadn't meant to wake her._

"_I don't know," I whispered softly, almost desperately. "Go back to sleep." She had been to see the doctor and was getting worse. Everything about her looked sick, down to the colour of her skin. My blood didn't seem to be helping her at all, and I was forbidden to change her. I ached at the thought of losing her._

"_No," she said, pulling me close, her lips grazing my neck in a weak, sleepy kiss. "Listen. I love you because you love me just like me just as I am without wanting to change me. I love you because you still come to me when I'm like this. And not only do you come, you come like my lover in the night." She laughed softly at her joke, a laugh I wouldn't have thought she could muster given the situation. Her smile lights up her face for a brief moment, a moment that pushes me past sorrow and closer to despair._

"_Of course I come at night, I am a vampire," I said softly with a tiny smile of my own, kissing her forehead and pulling her close. I chose to ignore the ache in my throat from the tears I refused to let fall and lowered my voice further. "I love you, Mir. You're beautiful just the way you are and I don't intend to stop coming. I'll want you forever."_

_Sleep has pulled her under and I'm not sure how much she heard, but I kissed her forehead gently and repeated my heart anyway, if not for her then for myself._

"_I love you, Miriam."_

xxx

The hospital parking lot is nearly empty when I pull in, and I park near the back in the shadow of a tree. Visiting hours ended long ago, but when the patient you're visiting is sick enough, visiting hours are meaningless.

The hospital is hushed, and I cross the lobby in silence, choosing the stairs over the elevator for their speed. Before I know it, I'm outside of Miriam's door, peering through the tiny glass pane in her window, watching Immanuel lean over her bed and shake with sobs. I can see his lips moving and open the door silently, just an inch, to catch his words.

"Mom and Dad were here today," I can hear him say. "They stayed for almost an hour. They're all broken up, Mir, they don't know what to do. They thought they would have a lifetime to wait out your rebellion. They thought for sure you would come back to them. They never realized that you are who you wanted to be and that wasn't going to change. They still don't. But they're upset with themselves about all the fights and all the time you spent not talking. But they do love you. They really, really do."

xxx

"_I'm pretty sure I'm winning," I said with a satisfied smile, adding another blue peg to my little plastic car. "Look at all the children I have now. You'd better start to reproduce if you want to catch up."_

"_I don't know about that," Miriam said with a shadow of a smile, sending the spinner whirring and driving her car the designated number of spaces. "All of those kids are going to cost you. Kids don't come cheap." She'd been trying to be cheery, I'll give her that, but I hadn't seen a proper smile on her face the entire night. I turned the spinner and organized my piles of money while I wait for it to stop._

"_What's wrong with you?" I asked bluntly, driving my car forward and collecting my earnings. I added the paper money to my neat stacks and tallied up my new total mentally._

"_Nothing," she said with a little shake of her head, the expression on her face saying it clearly wasn't nothing. I raised my eyebrows and waited while she pointedly ignored me and took her turn. After a moment, she met my stare. "What?"_

"_You tell me what," I said, giving the spinner a good spin and waiting impatiently for it to stop. "You've been unhappy all night." She sighed and I waited, watching her add pink and blue pegs to all of the extra cars, creating family after family. Finally, she looked up at me. _

"_It's my parents."_

_I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and moved my car instead. I should have guessed. When something's wrong it's always her parents. They took issue with everything she did from her choice of career to her sexuality. It was a relationship like theirs that made me glad my own parents had been dead for over a century. _

_I organized the money in the game lid turned bank while I waited for her to take her turn, and realized a long moment later than she hadn't moved. Our eyes met across the game board._

"_Do you want me to spin for you?" I asked. "I am an excellent spinner." I watched in horror as her eyes filled with tears._

"_It's just that they don't understand," she said suddenly on a sob, a torrent of tears coursing down her face. "It's not that I don't want to be what they want me to be, it's just that's it's not who I am. I can't change who I am." I slide from my seat and round the table to her, guiding her from her chair and leading her to couch. I sit next to her and gather her to me, patting her back and soothing her sobs._

_I have heard her talk about her parents a lot of times, but they've never brought her to tears. They've often upset her, but usually we would laugh over their closed minds and judgmental ways. What's changed?_

"_What's different this time?" I asked. "Usually they don't upset you like this."_

"_They told me until I change, they're done with me. They said until I made different choices, they wouldn't claim me as their daughter." Anger coursed through me and I felt myself stiffen, but I held her gently against me, caressing her hair. _

_How dare they? How dare they order her to change? How dare they use her love for them against her?_

"_Don't listen to them," I said fiercely after a moment, pulling from her embrace and raising her chin so I could look into her eyes. She had to know I was serious about what I was going to say. She had to know I meant it. "Miriam, you're perfect as you are. You love yourself. And I love you just the way you are. Don't change for anyone with a small mind, even your parents."_

_A tiny smile crossed her face, a fragile little smile at odds with the tears. I frowned at her expression. Had she lost her mind?_

"_You love me?" she asked, the tears on her lashes making her eyes sparkle in the light. _

"_Did I say that?" I asked, smiling at her nod. I hadn't intended to say it, I'd only meant to get my point across, but I wasn't lying. I do love her. "Well then, I guess I probably do."_

_Her smile widened further and the expression on her face was nothing short of sweet as she pressed her lips against mine in a kiss. Now this beat crying any day. _

_Her lips travelled from my mouth up my jaw, and I shivered when I felt her breath on my ear._

"_I love you, too."_

xxx

I could hear her struggle for breath the moment I opened the door and rushed to her side in horror. Immanuel, too tired and upset to be surprised by my sudden appearance, lifted his head slowly from where it rested on Miriam's mattress. His blood shot eyes and wet face hold my attention for only a moment before I turn back to Miriam.

"Do they know about this?" I ask, lowering my ear to her chest to listen to her breathing. Her breaths are slow, not very strong, and sound like they hurt. I look at her in dismay before turning back on Immanuel. I'm angry, and I'm not surprised to find my fangs have popped out. "She's dying, isn't she? That's why your parents were here? They don't exist to her while she's living but they come to see her die?"

Immanuel just looks at me blankly, tears on his cheeks. I want to hit him, to force that pathetic look off his face, to incite some action. Instead I drop down into the seat next to him and take Miriam's hand in mine. It's not his fault. There's nothing he can do. "Why didn't you mention this on the phone earlier?"

"It just started," he says eying the wall, the floor, anything but me and his sister. "The doctors say she doesn't have much time left. A day, maybe more."

We sit in silence for a moment, both our eyes on the figure in the bed. She looks so thin, almost skeletal. There's not much to her anymore. Just some bones, some tissues, some fluids. She's not anything like the Miriam I loved. She's barely alive at all.

"You have to turn her," Immanuel says suddenly, eyes boring into mine with an intensity I'm not used to seeing from him. I give him a long look before turning my eyes back to the shell of my love.

"Of course I have to turn her," I say calmly. "She has a day. That's all I need."

I take a few minutes to fill Immanuel in on the plan it took us hours to create. Taking down Victor will be no easy task but whether we succeed or not, tomorrow will be the day the waiting is over. Tomorrow is the day Miriam and I will live or die. Tomorrow our uncertainty will come to an end.

Immanuel shuffles out the door, nearly dead on his feet, and I check my phone briefly for texts or missed calls before climbing into bed with Miriam, curling up at her side. I lay my head on her pillow, my face next to hers, and listen to her breathing. She sounds terrible.

I close my eyes against the lights in the hospital room and take her hand into mine, ear attuned to breath after rasping breath. Her skin is thin and dry under my fingertips, reminding me of paper easily torn, and I try not to dwell on how this feels all wrong. Instead, I put my mouth near her ear and play with her the game she's been playing with me for years.

"Mir? Do you know why I love you?"

xxx

"_Let's do cartwheels," she said suddenly, running ahead of me in the sand, her laughter carried high on the wind from the sea. I watch her turn head over heels, and laugh as I chase after her._

"_I don't think I know how to turn cartwheels," I said, giving it a try anyway and barely landing on my feet. Miriam's laugh comes from close by._

"_Come on," she said, cartwheeling again, her skirt flipping inside out to expose her bathing suit bottom. "Don't tell me you never did cartwheels as a kid."_

"_Of course I did," I said, giving it another try, my hands leaving prints behind in the sand, "It's just been a hundred and fifty years since I was a kid." Miriam just laughed, the sound happy and free, and I stood in place and watched her turn perfect cartwheel after cartwheel in front of me. She stopped when she was dizzy and dropped to the sand, lying supine on the beach just short of the tide. I lay alongside her placing a kiss on her lips, caressing her body from her breast to her hip._

"_Did you have a good day?" I asked, placing my head on her shoulder and breathing deeply of her scent as she wrapped her arms around me and focused on the stars in the sky._

"_I did," she said with a smile into the darkness. We lay silent, listening to the sounds of the ocean, Miriam staring at the sky, me staring at her. She was so beautiful, so vibrant, so alive. I wanted her more than I've wanted anyone in a very long while. _

_Smiling at her and turning my gaze to the ocean, I threaded my fingers through hers, content to listen to her heartbeat._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"_Truth or dare?" she asked from her place in the crook of my arm, her naked body warm against mine._

"_Hmm," I said, tickling her side with a brush of my fingers. Normally I'd rather do a dare than tell the truth, but I wasn't quite ready to let her go. "Truth."_

"_Alright," she said slowly, thoughtfully, throwing her arm across me and hugging me close. Her toes tickled my calf when she tossed her leg over mine. "Tell me about your mom."_

"_What? No," I said, stiffening in her embrace. "Dare. I choose dare."_

"_Too late." Her smile was sweet as she stroked my eyebrows, my cheekbones, my nose with the tips of her fingers. "You chose truth, you tell the truth."_

_I breathed deeply, unnecessarily, and relaxed under her caress._

"_My mother was a typical woman for her time. She always dressed and behaved as she was expected. She attended to her household duties satisfactorily." We lay in silence for a few moments, Miriam's fingers in my hair, sweeping it from my face, separating the strands with her fingers. I could feel her warm breath on my chest and her hair shifting against my neck when she tilted her face toward mine._

"_No," she said finally, quietly. "Tell me about your mother." I knew what she meant._

"_She sang to me," I said softly, so softly I wasn't sure if Miriam could hear. "When I was young, and even as I aged, she was always singing."_

"_What else?" she urged, her finger tracing the outline of my ear and the ridges and valleys within._

"_She was an excellent embroiderer. She would embroider gifts for weddings and births. She spent a lot of time trying teaching me how, but I never got to be as good as she was."_

"_Anything else?" she asked, breath warm against my cheek, her fingers tracing my collarbone, the tendons in my neck. I laid silent for a moment, lost in the feeling of Miriam's caress, and thought back over the years. It was hard to remember so long ago. That life, those people, felt so far separated from my now, if feels like it could have been someone else's lifetime._

"_I idolized her when I was a child," I said with the ghost of a smile, remembering. "I used to mimic her in everything she did. I thought she was the perfect woman and I wanted to be just like her. Until I realized perfect women weren't permitted to think for themselves. I didn't care for that idea." Miriam smiled, lips against my cheek._

"_I imagine not," she murmured, twirling a few strands of my hair around her finger while I lapsed into silence._

xxx

The hospital is busy when I push through the doors, crossing to the stairwell at top speed. Immanuel's message had been brief but clear enough – hurry. As if I hadn't already known. The door to her room is ajar, and I can hear her labored breathing from the hall. I let the door click shut behind me as I step inside.

"Pam," Immanuel says jumping from the chair situated next to the bed and crossing the room to me. He looks like he's going to grab me so I take a step back, putting myself out of his reach.

"Has she worsened?" I ask, turning automatically to the figure in the bed. Her face is ashen and every breath looks like it costs her. She looks like she's lost ten pounds since yesterday and I can barely see her body under the blankets. I drag my eyes from Miriam and turn my focus back to Immanuel, trying to block out her horrible rasping breaths. I'm surprised Immanuel can't hear them.

"Pam," he says again, voice cracking, tears seeping from the corners of his eyes and racing to his chin. He lurches forward desperately and seizes my hand in an unexpectedly tight grip. "She can't wait. She doesn't have time. You have to do it now. If you don't turn her, she's going to die. She's my sister, I can't lose her. Please help her."

xxx

"_Immanuel, turn it up," she yelled over the sound of the wind to the front seat, raking a hand through her hair to push it out of her face. Immanuel turned the dial on the radio, urging it louder by just a couple of notches. The boom of the bass intensified and I resisted the desire to cover my ears. Miriam claimed my hand, pulling it from my lap, and gave it a squeeze as she swayed in her seat to the music. My hand warmed in hers and I couldn't help but smile._

"_Sing with me," she commanded with a wild grin, belting out lyrics at the top of her voice without waiting for anyone, her rich alto filling the car. Immanuel chimed in, then his date, singing the words to a song I did not know. Miriam's eyes sparkled with her joy as we raced down the street, the windows of her old car wide open, her stereo cranked intolerably loud. The wind whipped her hair behind her, around her face, toward me, her carefully straightened locks growing wavy in the wind. Her cheeks were flushed with liquor and excitement when she grinned in my direction, joy written all over her face._

"_You're beautiful," I shouted over the sound of the music, though I know she couldn't really hear me. I lifted her hand to kiss it, wanting to be close to her in any way I could. She turned toward me and gave me another giddy grin, pulling our entwined hands close and laying a feather light kiss across my knuckles._

"_I love you, too," she yelled over the music, then resumed singing recklessly into the wind._

xxx

Indecision bears down on me as I cross the room to Miriam. She looks so familiar yet so foreign, lying with her eyes closed, her face passive. The features are right. Her nose is straight and in the middle of her face, and her chin still as that scar on it from where Immanuel pushed her into a table when they were kids. She still has two eyes, two ears, brown hair, full lips, but she's not my Miriam. Her light is gone. Her complexion is all wrong. Even her hair has lost it's luster. It's obvious she doesn't have the time to wait.

But if only she could wait, just a few hours. Our meeting with Victor is later tonight, right after Fangtasia closes. I hate to hear her suffer, to see what she's become, but surely she can wait that long. They said she had a day, and it'll have been less than a day by the time we're done with Victor. Then I can turn her and all this will be over. Just a few more hours and Miriam will have forever.

But what if she can't wait? What if a few hours is more than she can stand? What if a few more hours if the difference between keeping her and losing her?

I caress her features with my fingertips, both the wrong and the right, thinking, contemplating. Who would know the difference of mere hours? Making a vampire isn't an exact science. If I turn her now and live, I'll tell everyone I turned her after the battle. If I turn her now and die, I won't have to worry about the consequence.

My thumb traces her cheekbone and I can't help but notice her skin looks almost as dead as mind. The realization is shocking, almost physically so, and I lift my eyes to meet Immanuel's across the room.

"I'll do it now. Lock the door."

xxx

"_Do you really have to do that?" she snapped, slamming her laptop shut and glaring at me across the couch. I raise my eyebrows and give her a look._

"_Do what?" I asked innocently, blowing gently on my nails and returning to filing._

"_You know what," she said, wrenching her glasses of her face and tossing them onto the coffee table. "I can't get anything done with you scratching away at your nails right next to me. I don't know what you bother with that anyway. You know very well they're just going to come back." I shoot her a glare of my own._

"_I like it," I said, scraping the emery board across my thumb nail slowly and deliberately. "And if you'd just put away your work for a while maybe I could find something less annoying to do." I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively, thinking of all of the less annoying things we could be doing._

"_Please," she said with an eye roll, retrieving her glasses and sliding them on her face. "I can't always be around when you're ready to have fun. Sometimes I have other things to do. Which you should understand. How many times have you had to leave me in the middle of the night because you had to deal with your job?" My eyes narrow as she opens her laptop and I can feel myself getting angry._

"_I don't have a choice," I said through tight lips, staring at the back of the screen that obscures most of her face. "You can't always make your own schedule when you're a vampire."_

"_So you say," she said rudely, sarcastically, distractedly tapping away on her keyboard. I give her a cold look, one I know she can't see. I yearn to slam her laptop shut, to make her listen, but I resume my filing instead. After a few long, tense moments, I break the silence._

"_Do you not believe me?" I asked calmly as possible, catching her gaze the second it leaves the screen._

"_Of course I believe you," she said with a sigh, closing her laptop with a soft click and pushing it off her lap and onto the couch between us. "But it doesn't change anything. I don't see you as much as I want because you have to work. And sometimes I have to work too. It happens. It's a fact. I'd just appreciate a little more support and a little less pouting about that fact. I certainly don't pout when you have to work." I regarded her silently for a moment, taking note of how sexy she looked in the glasses she rarely wore.  
><em>

"_You're right," I said finally, tossing my file to the table and lifting her feet off the floor, turning her in her seat. "Foot rub?" I gave her my sweetest smile._

"_That's more like it," she mumbled, leaning over to place a kiss on my lips and retrieve her laptop._

xxx

Immanuel crosses her room in a hurry, clicking the lock on the door in place to afford us a little privacy. I kick off my shoes and toss my purse to the floor, rolling my sleeves to my elbows and crossing the room at top speed. A wave of nervousness washes through me and I stop in my tracks. I'm not scared of what Victor will do should he find out Miriam has been turned. Surely if I die and he lives he will just kill her anyway. I am scared of hurting Miriam.

I've never turned someone, let alone someone so fragile. She doesn't look like she can fight anyone or anything, and I don't doubt an errant wind could blow her down if she stood. Her skin looks like it will tear and never repair under the force of the bite meant to turn her. Surely my blood won't hurt, though. It will just be a matter of getting her blood out and my blood in. Maybe she should have some of mine before I take any of hers just in case.

Immanuel crosses the room from the door, dropping down into a chair near the bathroom, staring at me with wide eyes. He fidgeted, then stilled, eyes trained on the bed, gaze never leaving mine. The only sound is of Miriam's breathing, crackling through the room like lightening on a summer night, granting sound to the tension that can't be heard. I push the nerves and doubts aside and take the final step to her bedside. I can't wait, I can't doubt, there's no room for either. This is the one chance I have to keep my Miriam.

I climb into the bed beside her, careful not to jostle her, as I've done so many times before. My senses, trained to recognize her, rebel as I'm overwhelmed with the foreign smell, sound, feel of the woman who used to be my Miriam. I slide an arm behind her shoulders and lift her from the pillows ever so gently. She weighs nothing, less than nothing, and I try not to think of that as I cradle her close.

I cringe just a bit as my fangs pierce my flesh and watch as blood begins to ooze from the wound. I resist the urge to lick it and instead turn to Miriam. I lower my wrist to her mouth, my eyes lingering on the lips have laughed, smiled, kissed me, a million times or more. My blood coats those lips, the lips of my love, and I try to be patient as it flows languidly into her mouth. Before it can cross her tongue and well before it reaches her throat, the room stills and falls eerily silent. It takes me less than a second to realize that breathing that has been so painful to listen to has stopped.

I turn to Immanuel, my eyes now as wide as his, as the wound on my wrist closes itself against the lifeless lips of my lover.

xxx

_I could hear the rain beating down on the sand as I watched her through the darkness. Her hair hung wet around her shoulders, dark tangles against her skin. Her dress, so soft and prim just hours ago, clung to her body, her curves, like a lover, inviting me, enticing me, from all the way across the beach._

_She stood calf deep in the surf, skirt thrashing in the roiling water, kicking at the waves like a child playing a game. She planted her feet when the tide went out, burying them in the sand, resisting the pull of the ocean. She laughed at her game with the sea, her peal nearly lost to the wind, and she raised her hands and titled her head to the sky as if to praise the rain for declaring her victor. She turned in the surf, arms to the heavens, in a dance of joy and defiance known only to her heart._

_She looked strong, happy, alive. And she'd never looked more beautiful._

"_Pam," she yelled over the storm, eyes to the clouds, water running down her neck. "Come play with me." She halted her dance and gazed through the darkness toward the house we rented on the beach. Water droplets clung to her lashes, tossed free with every blink, and I found myself wanting to touch her more than I had ever wanted for anything before._

_Kicking off my shoes, I stepped off the porch and into the rain._

_The shower was heavy, the rain warm on my skin, and it only took a moment to soak through my clothes. I crossed the beach at human speed, leaving footprints in the packed, wet sand, and stepped into the ocean to stand alongside my Miriam._

"_It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said more than asked, wrapping both arms tightly around my waist as she gazed toward the dark, turbulent water. The force of the tide tugged at my legs, trying to take me along with it, and I wriggled my feet deep into the sand. _

"_It's beautiful," I agreed, pushing her wet hair aside and leaning close to whisper it into her ear. She smelled of the sea, of the storm, of herself, and I couldn't resist pressing my lips to her neck. She shivered under my caress, though whether from the kiss or the cold I couldn't begin to guess, and goose bumps rose up under my lips. I kissed her again, this time nipping at her sensitive skin, and smiled against her at her shiver._

"_Are you cold?" I asked, sliding my hands along her curves as if to warm her, feeling her body through wet fabric. "Should we go in?"_

"_I'm cold," she breathed, turning to face me with a smile, "but I don't want to go in."_

"_No?" I asked, pressing my lips against hers, using my tongue to taste the rainwater. "You'd rather stand out her in the rain?"_

"_I feel powerful," she admitted with a shy smile. "I feel invincible. I feel like nothing can touch me here and it feels amazing." She stepped from my embrace and raised her arms to the sky, turning in place and laughing into the wind. I truly wished nothing could touch her here. If this was all it took to keep her safe, to keep her well, I'd let her play in the rain forever._

"_I'm king of the ocean," she shouted to the sea, throwing her arms wide as if embracing all of her subjects. She glanced at me over her shoulder, her smile sexy and playful all at once. "Be my queen?"_

_I laughed at her game and considered taking her inside. Rain couldn't be good for humans, especially one already sick. And didn't she have to be well to start her treatments? But she looked so happy, she looked so hopeful, and everything was so uncertain. Who knew when we might make it to the shore again? I stepped to her side and took her hand in mine, kissing her cheek and giving her a smile._

"_I'd love nothing more than to be your queen," I said with a laugh, tossing my arms wide to embrace her subjects.  
><em>

_And together, for a while, we ruled the ocean._


End file.
